


the noise of the wind going between buildings

by Background_Character



Series: "I call arson a career!" [4]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Dead Midoriya Inko, Gen, Namimori Is Crazy, Non-Linear Narrative, One Shot, Out of Character Reborn, Past Character Death, Reincarnation, Self-Reflection, Slice of Life, Weird Plot Shit, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-08 19:49:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15250758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Background_Character/pseuds/Background_Character
Summary: Namimori is a shitshow of exaggerated drama and prolific horror and anything in between that should be cohesively impossible for civilians to achieve in ways which Reborn cannot describe.(Or alternatively, the five moments Namimori made Izuku weird and the one time he turned the tables on himself.)





	the noise of the wind going between buildings

**Author's Note:**

> Why just settle for Tsunayoshi!Izuku when you could also have Izuku!Tsunayoshi as well?
> 
> Here 7k of unedited words (read: rambling) to convince you why.

**ONE.**  

> _**A beginning to an end and an end to a beginning unfolds.** _

If one wasn't careful, instead of falling into the hands of the Demon Prefect, they would instead find themselves in Sawada Tsunayoshi's jurisdiction.

See here in Namimori, things were a bit different. Sure, there was the threat of Hibari beating you within an inch of your life constantly hanging over everyone's shoulders, but as long as Sawada was around, if you were lucky enough and the gods were smiling upon you, there was an approximate ninety-eight percent chance (as calculated by the math department of Yumei Private) that he would help you. But the reason for this high chance? 

Actually, nobody, as far as everyone was concerned, has really tried to find a reason for this.

They just assumed that Sawada's heart of gold must've been crafted the very moment his mother ejected him from the womb.

And they weren't wrong.

... Just a bit off, that's all.

 

•

 

Oh, hell.

This isn't good.

He's got that damn notebook of his out in the middle of science.

"So if that really was Tanaka that I saw last Sunday, that must mean he's cheating on Enomoto because he said he was going out to Koukyo the Thursday before that and he did look awfully suspicious with the way he stumbled away from her as his phone rang... But then who's the other woman? I couldn't get a good look at her face, but next time, for sure, I'll be sure to identify her! Otherwise, otherwise... Old Man Sanka will cry!" Sawada threw down his pencil, ignoring the way it snapped upon impact with the ground, and began to clutch his head with both of his hands. His sobs of frustration echoing over the classroom awkwardly in light of his eye-popping words.

"I knew it," some people buzz in agreement.

No.

Sweet, hardworking, kind Tanaka from the bank was seeing another woman behind Enomoto's back? The very same Enomoto who is equally respectful of who they thought her faithful boyfriend was? No. It couldn't be. Everyone in the shopping district had worked so had to make the couple's first date a screaming success (which by proxy, involved every school within walking range) and this was how their blood, sweat and tears will go to waste? Just because Tanaka couldn't settle down despite the unknown pressure of the entire town eye's watching his and Enomoto's every move as they traversed through their relationship into what everyone had hoped to become marriage?

No.

Sawada must've made a mistake, there's no other way. Then again, Sawada's eyes are as perfect as his grades; there's no room for denial.

Tanaka and Enomoto will not be getting married or have cute kids or grow old together.

They will not because everyone present knows how cowardly the bank teller can become in the face of adversity. If the situation isn't dealt with swiftly, their relationship will end up in tatters with Tanaka moving away to save his pride and Enomoto heartbroken.

This calls for serious action.

"Sawada." Nezu-sensei closes his textbook and sets it on the podium, pushing his glasses up enough to catch the rays of the sun. "Is this true?"

The boy looks up, lips set in a grim line and nods, then he leans over to rummage through his bag. There's only the sound of paper and rustling as the clock ticks on in the background before eventually, Sawada pulls something out, gets to his feet, walks to the front of the room and stares as the blackboard with something akin to fear when he turns on his heel to face everyone. Their teacher respectfully stands off to the side, ready to support whatever the boy will say next.

"Despite our best efforts, one of Namimori's greatest operations was deemed obsolete on the thirtieth of May, last Sunday as previously mentioned, by one of the two whom we promised would be blessed with a happy life in this very town. Unfortunately for us, the human heart is too great to fully comprehend and it seems that Tanaka Noboru has decided to follow its whims, allowing himself to be ensnared by the pleasures of adultery." He wiped away a stray tear, which only seemed to incite his fellows peers to join in on the obvious elephant in the room. "If you need physical proof, I have it right here in the forms of photographs and numerous audio recordings that I will copy and freely distribute amongst the housewife sector to process, and much more can be obtained if anyone does not object to initiating a Town Red. But, if you disagree that this crime should go unresolved, please raise your hand."

Nobody did.

"Okay," Sawada says, choking on his breath, "I'll raise the alarm."

 

•

 

_'Okay?'_

That was it?

What in the name of Primo had he just witnessed?

Either he was hallucinating that a bunch of middle schoolers were scheming the social death of a man that they definitely had no personal ties to or that absolute buffoon called Iemitsu fucked up. Again. Royally. Great. Just great.

He burnt the useless files immediately.

Reborn wasn't sure if he had to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the situation. His future student-to-be— _described as dumb, pathetic, weak and uncharismatic by his own father_ —had just rallied his classmates to call to arms without a batting an eyelash, confident that everyone else involved in the aforementioned 'one of Naminori's greatest operations' would also join in what he assumed would be the punishment of one Tanaka Noboru. That. Did. Not. Just. Happen. Not in everyday life, at least. Not even on the streets of Sicily would stray dogs band together so readily to take down a common enemy.

But this was Namimori. The very same Namimori that Iemitsu had claimed to be the most backwater of towns in all of Japan despite its relative closeness to a major city (just a forty-five minute long train ride away). The very same Namimori that wasn't supposed to be home to what would be the equivalent to of a Vongola execution  _and_  clean-up crew. The very same Namimori that the Sawada family has resided in just a few months shy of the birth of Sawada Tsunayoshi.

And he knows he's wrong when things are right.

This isn't the town Iemitsu came to know as a place to call home.

Namimori has become so much more in that man's absence and Reborn will be damned if he lets this little nugget of information slip out into the open wild.

 

•

 

"A home tutor?"

"It looked interesting."

"You sure this isn't another scam?"

"I asked the lady next door if she saw anything suspicious and she gave me the all clear."

"... Did you not hear the news yet, Mama?"

"What news?"

"There's a Town Red out for Tanaka Noboru."

"Oh, you mean that nice young man that I had to help Tsuyoshi prepare sushi for a year ago? That's such a shame. Enomoto and him were going to be great..."

"I know."

"Are you helping to arrange the payment?"

"I was the one to suggest it, so that would be part of my responsibilities."

 

 

**TWO.**

> _**Tanaka Noboru's days are numbered.** _

Reborn holds off from knocking on the door of the Sawada household for one week. He wants to see what a 'Town Red' exactly means, and he 'll only find that out if he doesn't interfere with the natural flow of the townspeople by shooting Sawada Tsunayoshi.

On the following Monday, he saw a gathering of people, mostly from the town's numerous retirement homes, talking amongst themselves. No doubt whispering about what they could do to whip that 'young whippersnapper Tanaka' into shape. He saw the way they swung their canes over their shoulders like they weighed nothing (some even drew the handle out to reveal blades, to his surprise); he saw the way those with walking frames and in wheelchairs ominously went into every hardware store within a manageable distance and brought out every stock of oil and grease they could buy; and he saw the way the elderly who hadn't any need for supporting devices start to physically push themselves every morning and night with a grueling regimen that rivaled Dino's own when Reborn had been the his tutor.

(When the comparisons to Nono start popping in his head, he thinks he'd prefer the elderly of Namimori to shoot him in the head if he was ever captured for a ransom.)

On Tuesday, he watched over a few school children sit in circles around the absurdly large sandpit area dotted in every park, each group drawing up elaborate maps of Namimori and tracing various paths with their fingers. He heard the saying, 'Swallow a thousand needles,' being exchanged a bit too many times for comfort and immediately bolted when he accidentally snapped a tree branch by leaning his weight on the weaker end to listen in on their barely audible whispers, notifying the closet of his location. "There's a rat!" one of them screams, setting the rest of the children on high alert as they scatter to find him.

Note to self: never cross children in the midst of a war. They are, and will always be, terrifying.

On Wednesday, he goes back to Namimori Middle School, and consequently, the high school across the road from it, and notices nothing much when he sees that everything is normal.

Except for the excessive amount of secret notes circulating.

Each one is written in code; different from one another depending on the origin point, and somehow, no matter how hard he tries to read them, he binoculars aren't simply powerful enough to get a clear view of whatever's written. The students are like computers, neatly making sure everything is in a tiny size one font. It's crazy. Even Sawada is capable of reading the notes that come his way to write replies and they're off again, going to whomever. If the teachers notice, they don't say a thing, and, and much like their students, they're planning too.

On Thursday, he follows after Iemitsu's wife, Nana, having overheard her plans to meet up with some of her old friends later. In retrospect, he expected nothing much, but every idle person within the surrounding neighbours piled into a little, quaint cafe with Nana easily mingling in with them. Her laughter may sound airheaded but Reborn knows better. She's the woman who raised Sawada—there's got to be something a bit off about her that slipped through her nurturing into her son. 

... And he comes up short. She's just an ordinary civilian helping out the community by participating in a sting-like operation.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Strange.

On Friday, he spots Tanaka Noboru and his other lover. To his immense amusement, he discovers that she's nothing in comparison to Enomoto. No wonder everybody's got their panties in a twist. Enomoto is a native of Namimori and Tanaka is the city boy tranferee from the city that literally swept her off her feet in this backwater place. Who here wouldn't to make an old friend happy? And if he's correct in his deduction, the reason Sawada is taking this offense seriously is because Enomoto used to babysit him when he was younger.

He probably feels indebted to her, Reborn figures.

(If he wasn't so focused on the scandalous couple, he would've instead seen Enomoto heading inconspicuously behind a telephone pole and muttering under her breath curses.)

On Saturday, the existence of a pressuring atmosphere is something he cannot deny.

Huh.

Today is the day.

He saw some members from the local hiking club setting up what looked to be fireworks last night, so he decides to take a short trip on this day to Koukyo to wait out the storm.

 

 

**THREE.**

> _**Friendship is one of the many cures to loneliness, just not the best.** _

He awakens on Sunday morning to his phone vibrating on the floor—it must've fallen from his grip while he slept—and he picks it up, flipping up the screen to be greeted with a incoming call. His fingers wavers over the receive button for a moment before he reminds himself this is all strictly for business. "Hello, this is Izuku, how may I help you?"

"De-Deku? Is that really you?" He recognises this voice. And only one person ever calls him that. She read the kanji wrong and he let it slide once, which turned into twice and three more times...

"Ah, Miura-san! I haven't heard from you in a long time! Have you been able to settle in yet?"

"Um, yes, I have... I made a couple of friends at the school you recommended to me a few months back, but..."

"Is there a problem?"

"What was  _that_  about yesterday?"

He pauses in making a reply. That's right. Miura hasn't been here long enough to know about last year's matchmaking operation, so of course she'd be confused by what happened within the town, and it'd be natural for her to come to him first about it, seeing as he's the one who practically arranged for her family to move over to Namimori several months back. Apparently, the situation was that her father made a small error that sent his entire company spiraling down and had been unable to find employment before she reached out to him over a local forum. Her mother, while successful in her own rights, came to the conclusion that catering for an nonworking husband and her daughter had been too much and left without so much saying a word.

They technically still are married, but Miura couldn't bear watching her father waste away and asked if there were any new opportunities in his hometown.

He complied, worried for his longtime online friend.

"Yesterday was just a Namimori tradition, Miura-san."

"Is that why Mister Tanaka moved out suddenly?!" she shrieked.

Damn. He had forgotten about this—this one little aspect.

Tanaka Noboru lived three doors down from his friend's new residence. And knowing Miura, she would be worried about anybody in close proximity just leaving, even if she didn't know them that well.

Oh well. She'll be integrated by Sasagawa, soon enough... Wait, no. That isn't right. He forgot he sent Miura to Midori Middle, not Namimori Middle—just to be on the safe side. They've never met face to face before. He can't risk his identity for a mere friendship.

"Be rest assured, Miura-san, it's most likely that he recieved some kind of notice about some family business that needed to be urgently attended to," he lies. "It happens often enough that we don't even bat an eyelash, nowadays."

 

•

 

Sunday afternoon.

Reborn double checks his watch to make sure he's arrived right on time, no later than early. Good. He likes it that way.

"Mama, I'm just popping out for a bit!" Sawada's voice is loud yet formal in its delivery.

Nana's follows quickly after, "Bye bye, Tsu-kun!" 

That's his cue. The front door swings open, as expected, but what makes him stop from opening his mouth is the way Sawada's eyes bore directly into his own. As if the boy, too, was expecting his presence. Time comes to a standstill as they stare at each other without so much a word being exchanged and Reborn's getting fed with the way he can't read Sawada as the boy's face goes from jovial to blank.

"I'm Reborn, your new home tutor."

"Oh. Okay." Sawada does a slight bow as he says, "Please take care of me." And breezes past the hitman, acting like meeting a baby claiming to be your tutor was nothing out of the ordinary.

Now, he knows he should've foreseen this kind of reaction, but it was just the way it seemed so practiced threw Reborn for a loop.

"Hey, wait a minute!" he calls out after the boy, forcing his short legs to catch up to his future student's longer strides. The boy doesn't stop. "Did you even hear what I said?"

"Yeah, I did, but what of it?"

"Doesn't improving your grades sound important to you?"

"And getting straight A's isn't good enough?" Reborn blinks before he thinks.

"You're going to become a mafia don."

Sawada Tsunayoshi trips and falls into a gutter, hissing foul English to himself.

 

•

 

Same day, different time.

He can't believe his luck.

He can't believe he died once only to come back from the afterlife as a different person.

He can't believe it's the reason why he's being made to become a mafia don.

"I want to become a police officer though!"

"Why?" Reborn's tone is oblivious and harsh, it's not something pleasant to listen to over and over again every time he's been shot at.

"Who wouldn't want to be? Didn't you know? At least fifty-eight percent of the town's population who are under twenty-six years of age aspire to join the force!"

"Why?" The baby is beginning to sound irritated.

"Just because. It's. Awesome."

"Awesome how?"

"You can dig up graves and nobody will care."

"Isn't that technically grave robbing?"

"In Namimori, grave robbing is a sport exclusive to social services."

"Are you insinuating that doctors and nurses also participate in this... activity?"

"They usually win the annual competition, so I don't see why they wouldn't," he counters, feeling wistful for a second before turning back to Reborn. "But besides that, being a police officer comes with a lot of benefits too—like indefinite immunity from the Momokyokai's turf wars they hold with other organisations as long as you don't throw one of their own in a cell."

Which is true. Mostly.

(It's not like he's won the competition himself once or twice or anything.)

 

•

 

Even the Mafia has its standards.

(Enrico, although shot in the head, was found positioned upon a chair poised and prim, as if nothing happened, with the gun in his hands folded over his knees glinting in the sunlight.

Massimo, drowned and bloated as his corpse was, someone had the kindness to drag him from the sea and remove the chains that anchored him down in death. 

Federico, while nothing but bones, was sent home in a tastefully selected box right into Nono's lap. If anybody made a comment on the choice of seashell decor, he didn't remember.)

Namimori, apparently, doesn't have morals. (Or it does but nobody really cares and they've created their own bubble that efficiently cuts off the rest of society, and from what he's seen with the Tanaka Incident, it just... works. Somehow. He doesn't want to delve further unless he ever gets the urge to want to go crazy because of Sawada.)

(If what he's seen is logical, that practically makes the whole town a family in its own right.)

Reborn wasn't sure if he had to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the situation.

He settles for trying to shoot Sawada, who dodges the bullet, much to his ire.

 

 

**FOUR.**

> _**One cannot simply change themselves based on the wishes of others.** _

Nothing works.

It frustrates him to no end, forcing Reborn to scheme more elaborate plots for Sawada to accept that the inevitable will happen.

"You will become a boss."

"I will become a policeman."

Nothing works.

Not threats, not blackmail, not even physical harm via the ridiculous amount of items he brought over with him from Italy; Sawada Tsunayoshi takes it all in stride and goes about his days, seemingly oblivious to Reborn's overbearing insistence. Somehow, Nana is on board with this notion, sending him what he knows is a thousand watt smile every time she serves him coffee in the morning. Almost like she's trying to kill him with a sheer abnormality of what constitutes as kindness around here. 

"You will become a Mafia boss."

"I will become a worker for public well-being."

Nothing works.

Not even the  ~~summoning~~  appearance of one Gokudera Hayato is enough to shake the community. His bombs are comparable to a fraction of what the hiking club rigged up on the mountains for the Tanaka Incident. And the dynamite, oh gods, the sticks of almighty dynamite—if he had known there were a few unhinged enthusiasts in the class, he would've secured Gokudera a spot in a classroom other than Sawada's. There were so many hands clambering for a piece of authentic creation...

"You will become the boss of Vongola."

"I will become an upholder of the light."

Nothing works.

He tries to teach Sawada how to hold a gun and shoot. It ends spectacularly. 'I won't do it,' he says. 'The only time I will have need of this is when I need to protect something.'

"You will kill people."

"I will save people."

They have their differences; something which Reborn has known since he took up this task. They follow different moral compasses, they have different upbringings, their futures will coincide but never cross over from one person to the next. Sawada, on one hand, will probably continue to be an outlier on the radar, constantly blinking in and out of existence as he pops up here and there, giving away things but never receiving something back in return. Reborn, on the other hand, will probably continue to try and sway Sawada's opinions, always failing, never winning, maybe losing.

But he can't allow that.

Timoteo is dying and god only knows when Xanxus is going to become a free man.

 

•

 

Before Reborn arrived, he was both Tsunayoshi and Izuku.

A turbulent mixture of brain smarts and a walking human disaster.

Whoever that was before Reborn arrived was everything he ever needed. He could ace schoolwork but also make up for his perfection by also being the person he should've have been had it not been for All Might's intervention. He was himself. Tsunayoshi had been happy. Izuku had been calm. Nothing should've changed that balance at all. Nothing at all. Namimori was a great place, the people were nice and the overall atmosphere was comforting, almost sleepy in a manner of sorts. Sure, there were a few bits off about it that he questioned at first, but he recognised the signs of weird from Izuku's life and moved accordingly to the crowd.

It was fine.

And yes, maybe things got a bit out of hands at times, but it was all in good spirit and whatnot, so he didn't think much of it.

Not even when some looked up to him as a leader. 

But that doesn't mean he gives Reborn the consent to turn him into a literal one.

After the baby arrived, he stopped being a blend of two people and the line between them became clearer and clearer. Whereas Tsunayoshi could ignore the implications, Izuku could not. Whereas Tsunayoshi could play off the amount of killers entering the town (why isn't Hibari doing his job instead of fighting them?), Izuku found it increasingly difficult to hold his tongue. Whereas Tsunayoshi was a civilian prone to dangerous situations, Izuku was a  ~~former hero~~  person prone to running directly to the source of danger.

They are one and the same yet different in ways only they will understand.

At least the one thing they can agree on is Vongola situation.

Both of them don't see the appeal in taking over the Mafia's top dog, no matter how tempting it would be to give in and say yes to Reborn.

He doesn't see the point.

He just wants to become a simple police officer—something else both Izuku and Tsunayoshi want.

They get to commit all the arson in the world and nobody would care.

"The Mafia has magical fire," says Reborn offhandly, one afternoon, in the midst of a shooting spree that spanned from the entire walk from school to home.

... Nevermind.

 

 

**FIVE.**

> _**Stop yourself and take the time to breathe.** _

Maybe dropping the existence of Flames on Sawada like a gleeful Santa would when he brings out the coal was a mistake on Reborn's part. And true to his expectations, the boy starts rambling on the potential of Flames after one very brief explanation of the basics, citing multiple unknowns that might've benefitted from their usage had they known such a thing existed (what in the hell is an All Might or an Eraserhead and what does a stupid quote from the Three Musketeers that he's quickly coming to hate have to do with this all? Reborn doesn't want to know). A theory about potential thearapy methods via Rain and Mist Flames is thrown around for a couple of minute until Sawada moves onto how much he hates Storm Flames due to someone with revolve arc and funeral for a name.

"He's an asshole, Reborn," the boy hisses in a tone differently so from the natural neutral one he's used with Reborn until now. "He tried to choke me the first time we held a proper conversation. And he tried to become my friend. Prospective friends don't just do that to each other, even if we held the same particular interest in heroism."

Reborn is glad for the extra input stated, quickly deducing that Sawada's uncanny sense of hostility is due to his good judge of character.

Sun Flames to revive the dead is quickly chucked out of Sawada's pile, who says that tampering with a corpse wouldn't do anyone good but hinder their conscience.

 

_Bewitched by the human appearance it took on, his attack ceased and he froze up, almost like Todoroki was trying to snap him out of it, using the ice side of his Quirk—but Todoroki's dead, isn't he now?—and he couldn't stop himself from staring. Even as the monster screeched, the face it wore was still... was still his mother's. He never once cried when they couldn't seem to find her corpse amongst the many others buried beneath the earthern bunker that was supposed to have protected their lives while those who could fight defended the surface. He didn't shed a single damn tear._

_But when faced with the prospect of seeing her one last time, he ignored the way her (its) hand (claws) rushed through his abdomen._

_Someone cried out his name, yet by then, he had already lost himself._

 

"I like the sound of Lightning Flames," Sawada says, clenching and unclenching his hands before himself in a practiced motion. "Actually, I think it would be good in the long run if I had a proper grasp of every single one."

"But that's—"

"That's what, Reborn? If you want me to become the leader of the most deadly group in Italy, wouldn't benefit you and your little associates if I knew how to protect myself against all types of enemies?"

'But that's absurd,' he had wanted to say before the boy interrupted him. 'You'd die.'

There have been reports of people naturally possessing more than one Flame type, usually limited up to three; and even beyond that was a strain without formal training, but having heard Sawada's intentions of  _wanting_  (it couldn't be anything other than that which he could describe the tone Sawada spoke in) them all shook him a bit. There were rumours floating around about nameless strangers attempting to and it always ended with the word 'deceased' stamped on the cover of their file, and frankly, death by spontaneous human combustion doesn't sound like the nicest way to go. No one of the Vongola bosses ever strayed from the harmonisation of the Sky, often being proficient in its execution since childhood, and most of the time, they were strong enough to gravitate other Elements with similar ideals so they could all be sane and function like a proper Family without much conflict or the need for knowing how to wield the other six. 

And if Sawada actually did follow through with this endeavour... Reborn then took a moment to think through the proper information he had gathered of his new charge... 

He nods to himself, calculating the odds.

(With Gokudera in tow already, Reborn can only resign himself to despair at the thought of any other human being that appealed to Sawada's natural pull.)

"We're all doomed," he mutters.

Sawada Tsunayoshi laughs at his unstated plight. 

 

•

 

Midoriya Izuku scribbles down another line in his notebook.

(He'd been holding back before, but when Reborn explained the existence of Dying Will Flames, he told Nana that he'd be out for a short bit and brought a notebook from the convenience store down the road. It's not that he didn't like to call her 'Mother' mentally in his head, contrary to how he verbally addresses her as 'Mama', it was just the fact that he respected her for raising Tsunayoshi single-handedly without concern as to where Ie _-something-or-rather_ (his sire in this lifetime according to her and Reborn) actually is. She's content to live out her days as a woman with knitting needles and a sewing kit in her bag when the time for violence arises, but other than that—she was similar to his mother in that aspect.

Wandering husbands and detached sons; he will always wonder how his mother and Nana deal with it.)

Every sentence is methodical in his own branch of cryptography, stemming from the general Namimori alphabet that people adapted in their own ways and were taught from birth, with Nana's being so complex at times that he had to actually sit down and decipher the meaning. He began teaching Miura—who in turn, taught her father—the first day she stepped foot in the town, making sure that the process of making friendship between girls in Midori Middle easier for his friend. He didn't want her to become lost on the first day after all, when there were sure to be a flurry of notes going through the network, and maybe he'd get her to start working on her own unique brand next week. She's a smart girl, she'll figure one out as quickly as a Namimori born code cracker.

Smiling to himself, Izuku doesn't miss the way Reborn peers over his shoulder with blank eyes, scanning the open pages with scrutiny before releasing a huff.

"You need to learn Italian."

"What wrong with this?"

"From what I know, this language is unique to you and only you. The other people in your class have a hard time reading it."

"And learning Italian will help... How?"

"Gokudera can teach you the G-Code."

"G-what now?" Reborn shoots him a pointed look. "You mean the one I always see written on the edges of his textbook? It's easy to work out but there's a few things here and there that I can't translate..."

"Because Italian is mixed into the vocabulary."

"Oh. I see," he says, slowly combing through the times he spied Gokudera's books and wondered why he never used the local language. Gokudera already had his own. "Then that means Yamamoto, Sasagawa, Hibari, Mukuro, Chrome, and even Lambo—Reborn the boy's not even five but he's an absolute genius, keep him out of the line of fire!—will have to also be taught the G-Code system. Or at least, a bastardised version, considering how Mukuro and Lambo already know Italian and Chrome can just learn it from Mukuro himself whenever. I say bastardised because I wouldn't want to tear away something so personal from Gokudera's grasp—"

"Personal?" snorts the hitman. "Sawada, I bet you in the next decade, most of Vongola will have it as a bar standard need-to-know communication form. Even your old man will have the smarts to learn it."

Oh.

Thinking on it now, Reborn's right.

Whilst G-Code isn't difficult at all for him or his fellow Namimori born and breed Guardians to understand, it's the matter of the fact that not many others will have that experience even by the time he is formally inducted into the underbelly of the world, who saw cryptography as a difficult waste of time to spend resources on when there were lives yet to be ruined.

Just another thing to add to his growing list of his unconcern.

They'll be safe, hidden behind the randomly drawn scribbles, characters and numbers of another lifetime.

 

 

**\+ ULTRA.**

> _**Senseless destruction is gratification—depending on the situation and who is doing the destroying.** _

When Tsunayoshi was three and a half, he knew he was very peculiar child in comparison to his peers.

He didn't dream of committing arson on a daily basis, nor did his moral compass incline him to digging up remains of the dead, and he never once thought of some form of world domination through the power of sunshine, rainbows, happiness and charisma. He looked at the chicken scratch of the other children the teachers praised as handwriting (despite having his own raw form of the same thing they were learning pinned up to his wall) with disdain and coked down the acidity in his throat whenever he had to read and figure it all out. Children are, and always will be, crude, thoughtless snort-gernearating machinces.

_(Or maybe it's just his own experiences with children from before speaking, when Izuku was told again and again—)_

When Tsunayoshi was five, he dug up the Sawada family's grave's ashes and poked around the small containment hole that held the urns, his hands eventually catched onto something and pulled it up as the timer rang throughout the cemetery. His father, despite having been the one to pass on the Sawada name, would never know that what he found that day was more precious than all of the money in the world compared to what he found.

Or, at least, he thought it was.

His mother chuckled by his side when the day was over, a trophy and gift card to Old Man Sanka's supply shop in one hand and a dark cloak in the other. She had offered to carry one of the three, but he declined, persistant on keeping his treasures to himself. When they got him, he relinquished his hold on the cloak so she could clean it and patch up any of the strays threads that barely held it together.

To this day, it hung from the hook on his door, proudly fluttering in the air whenever it caught a daft in its worn fibres.

(The metallic collar pins that came along with it were placed into storage under his bed, gathering dust until years later, when Reborn would show him him the emblem of Vongola.)

At nine, his mother hired a first year high schooler to be his tutor and babysitter.

It benefited the both of them. Tsunayoshi needed companionship, his apparent maturity apparently too high for the elementary school closet to home, and Enomoto needed to save up money for university. She was the big sister figure he'd never had before. She was kind and compassionate, teaching him the ends and out of everything he needed to know because she herself was a genius who recognised kin when she saw one. They bonded over their differing codes, pouring over pages and pages of rules and characters and whatever else they could write in, eventually combing the two so that they talk without the fear of being found out.

_"Why do you want to be when you grow up?" she asked._

_"A police officer."_

_"Why?"_

_"They're the closet things to heroes I'll ever get."_

(In the end though, Enomoto took out the trash—quite literally—and the town rejoiced, setting off the fireworks as soon as town hall formalised the process and Tanaka Noboru was a lost cause. Word has it that he still wonders the mountain paths at night begging for forgiveness when in reality, its just Irie, on Enomoto's request, that is periodically pushing a number of buttons that illuminate the poor bastard's sight now and then.)

She still calls in to see if Tanaka's dead or not, but by this point, he knows that none of Namimori cares much now that she's found someone much better and became a teacher.

She got a happy ending.

 

•

 

Miura forgets about him, eventually.

She doesn't bat an eyelash when they cross paths, incidentally.

He only knows it's her and not some random girl crossing the street when Reborn points her out to him.

Doesn't even coo over Reborn because the clock is ticking and she'll be late if she continues at that slow pace of hers. And secretly, he knows she'll do just fine in this town without his guidance and only her healing father for company. She doesn't need him to watch over her when they've met each other formally and she doesn't even know his name even though she's told him hers.

She'll be fine.

And that is all. It is fine.

This friendship closes.

 

(A new friendship opens when Gokudera drags her into his office one day, introducing her as his girlfriend, and Izuku is so, so proud. She's changed for the better and no longer does trouble mare her brow. He never tells her about how he and Sawada Tsunayoshi are the same person. He doesn't mind that she thinks of him as her boyfriend's terrifying boss who's the same age and knows too much about her and the way she likes her instant ramen.

"Just call it a bit of intuition, Miura-san. A hunch," he tells her one day when she asks about it, the sea lapping at his toes with Gokudera a few paces behind them, puffing smoke; as if he knows.

Izuku wouldn't be surprised by that point, as he later found out that Gokudera researched and stumbled upon Miura's file by accident. His right-hand man was probably curious to meet the first person he truly befriended without barriers, that's all, and something quite different happened. Their eyes met and there was no going back.

He's happy for the both of them.

"Treat her well, Hayato." And his Storm nods, remembering the days when Namimori burnt with anger.)

 

_They've grown up, the both of them, drifting apart, no longer needing the comfort of strangers online._

 

•

 

Nana and Iemitsu—finally, finally, finally, after all these years, he remembers the name of the elusive man who came home with his own boss years ago and left Tsunayoshi reeling—reconcile. Albeit slowly.

He sees them, sometimes, whispering quiet nothings to each other. Even if they haven't met much in the last few years and by all means, should've separated by this point, he supposes its the power of true love at work for once in his life and he tiptoes around their little bubble of life, smiling to himself. Some people say it's disgusting how openly fond they are of each other in public, but Izuku could care less. If his own mother couldn't experience happiness once, what point was there in stopping Nana's?

She was Tsunayoshi's mother.

His mother in _this_ life.

He could never do that to her.

And Iemitsu, for every laspe of judgement the man's made, was only working hard to keep them protected.

So no matter how much he hated his guts, Izuku grit his teeth, joined in their animated laughter, and acted as they would expect of their only son.

 

(When Iemistu calls, it sometimes goes like this:

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I'm a terrible person. I've done things... that I'm not proud of. And it doesn't justify the fact that I essentially left you and your mother defenseless—I had a choice given to me when the chance came by, but I was scared, Tsuna. Scared that I would kill you in a fit of alarm. Scared that I would become like my own mother. Scared that I would lose myself. I became dillusioned with the duty I held for the Family and the duty I had to my wife and child. We were young—Nana had just graduated and gotten her degree, she had a life ahead of her and I wanted a child. I took her future by conceiving you."

"Then apologise to Mama, not me."

The phone calls always end there.)

 

He knows better than to pry.

_Years upon years of ringing pitches in his ears are testament to that._

 

* * *

 

On days where he finds his life free of chaos and atrocities ~~(and paperwork)~~ , he climbs onto the rooftop and looks down the ground, asking himself if he wanted to feel the wind in his face.

And he never feels up to the task, never being able to stomach the feeling of guilt if he did. He can only imagine the disrepair Vongola would fall into. He had no heirs; too young to even fathom the thought of marriage or even children, and he had made a silent vow that was witnesses by thousands upon thousands of eyes. He couldn't turn back now, not anymore at least. He's gone off too far into the deep end and his old hometown would be disappointed if he returned because of the commotion made when he first left.

He's tired.

Reborn (the everloving piece of crap his teacher is), when he finds him, asks why.

He doesn't know. He never does.

He's losing his mind being cooped up in that office of his when he knew he could be doing so much more for the world and it's making him weary these days.

He wants to go to sleep and never wake up; he wants someone to sneak in and take him out; he wants to be overestimated in a fight; he wants to fly—he wants to fall. 

Loosening his tie doesn't do much, and instead, it only serves to make his appearance more haggard.

He wouldn't be too surprised if he looked in a mirror and hallucinated Shinsou's reflection staring back at him, whom always stayed out during the night. He understands, now, why Iida always worried about his brother's health, even when it was obvious that the older male could get around fine in wheelchair thanks to the unconventional placement of his Quirk on his elbows. Being the the leader of what was essentially a hastily gathered group of children who were expected to work together sounded like a full time job that would be the job perfect for his old friend. He understands, now, why Ochako would want to work for money instead of the people. If it had been a choice instead of an inescapable trap, he might've done the same and still be in Namimori. He understands, now, why Aoyama shied away from a majority of the crowd, keeping mostly to himself in and out of class. He dislikes the expectations placed on his shoulders, scared to fail in front of the people who looked up to him for support and care.

He misses the way Kacchan would appear, sucking out all the optimism in the air, before slapping him with the cold truth of reality. 

He needs it to stay afloat even though he knows he can't.

He's trying to drown himself with the sky for company.

 

•

 

"If you could've been anyone else in the world, who would it be?"

"A simple boy called Deku," he answers Reborn, squinting at the sunrise breaking through the dawn. "Hands down."

 

* * *

 

_Dear Aizawa Shouta,_

_I understand why you hated teaching us now._

_Kids are exasperating to look after and watch out for._

_(Except for Kouta and Eri, they rule.)_

_They're troublesome, rowdy, and insane. I don't know how you did it, but you managed to tolerate twenty of us while I'm currently struggling to juggle just seven myself. A quasi-baby-now-an-adult called Reborn is not included in that count._

_And I've gotten myself hooked onto juice pouches as well._

_It turns out that here (in this universe?), they sell the same brand you consume, and with my (un)expected gain of wealth, I brought out the company._

_It was a bizarre experience, to say in the least. I had to go back home and learn business and accounting from the woman who has named me her children's godfather before my penmanship was up to scratch and be able to sign a document without reflexively signing it in something else._

_I set fire to Reborn's antique coffee bean grinder just to spite him today._

_I think the two of you would get along great if I ever see you again and he happens to be in the immediate vicinity._

_..._

_With kind regards from,_

~~_Sawada Tsunayoshi_ ~~

~~_Midororiya Izuku_ ~~

~~_Vongola Decimo_ ~~

_the Problem Child_

**Author's Note:**

> **Featured headcanon: Izuku's notebooks are written in some code and you can't pry it from my dead hands.**
> 
> •
> 
> Congratulations! You made it to the end of this ridiculous crossover fic! Sorry about that. I'll get around to editing it when I can, now and then.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
